When moving elements, wires in Sketrix still get stuck in certain spots. Looks broken, and it is. But the bug shows me exactly which elements are connected to which while I’m chasing other things. It’ll be the last thing I fix. Took me a while to realize that broken things are sometimes more useful than working ones.
Here’s how the system works: every symbol has connection points that face a direction. If two points face each other — same axis, opposite directions — they connect automatically. A dashed preview shows this before you even click. Place a corner directly on an existing wire and the wire splits automatically. The goal: draw schematics the way you think, not the way the software demands.
Sounds manageable. It wasn’t. This was right at the beginning of Sketrix and I had absolutely no idea what I’d gotten myself into. Symbols were crossing themselves out. Wires were getting stuck in places I’d supposedly fixed three times already. 10, 20, 100 symbols in a row connecting however they wanted, not how I wanted. And because I didn’t know what edge cases were back then, every fix produced two new problems. At that point I seriously considered throwing the whole thing out. Instead I spent two weeks refactoring with no visible progress. No feature, no result, just laying foundations. But after that, everything started to work. Today, with the knowledge and the structures I have now, it would probably take a fraction of the time. Back then I just didn’t know that yet…
Martin